


Our Circumstance

by sandyrex



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Portal 2 Spoilers, they're robots because fuck humanization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-05 03:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16359902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyrex/pseuds/sandyrex
Summary: Wheatley and Space Core gain a mutual understanding of each other; Chell finds someone like her on the surface. Characters reconcile.





	1. Regret

Sometimes regret fades away with time. Sometimes, mulling an event over and over and over again might help you and offer a solution to your grief. Sometimes the consequences might be helpful. This was not one of those times.  
When Wheatley had first been flung into space, while he wasn’t all that thrilled, at least it was interesting. Seeing the stars, the planets- oh, how beautiful Earth had looked the first time his optic had looked over it! His “companion,” who had dubbed himself the “Space Core,” had recognized almost all of the constellations he saw. He’d recite them, like poetry, over and over again until they didn’t seem like words anymore.  
Wheatley used to never be one for “the arts.” His writing was clumsy and choppy, and he hadn’t even an ounce of rhythm in his mechanics. He didn’t ever get art because he took everything literally- except for the rare bit of sarcasm he had understood from GLaDOS. But not even a week after he’d become stranded in an expanse of inky darkness, he’d seen a whole new layer of things.  
Space Core wasn’t much for conversation. Wheatley thought that his giddy voice was charming, but annoying, whatever that meant. For the first couple months, he’d tried to strike up a conversation with the corrupted core with no success. Their conversations might start with a tense “Hello?” from Wheatley, but Space wouldn’t take notice. Often times, Wheatley would turn on sleep mode for a couple of hours just to get a break.  
Being in space was almost like being in a room with no outside noise. The colors and shades of the background behind them was brilliant and inspiring, but it was awfully silent. It was extremely awkward too, because talking seemed to take up all the sound in the world.  
Wheatley knew that it wasn’t likely that Space would ever take notice of his talking though, so sometimes he’d quietly make up little songs or poems. He knew they were clunky- he’d heard enough from his fellow cores. But now, he was all alone with the seemingly least judgemental person in the world- but he still tried to make them nice.  
\--  
It’d been months since Chell had escaped Aperture Laboratories. The expanse of wheat fields that used to go on forever now seemed short and dull. The sky was a brilliant blue- rain happened often and clouds speckled the sky in the summer. Chell thought it was wonderful- but lonely.  
A couple weeks after she’d traveled around, saw a beach and an old city- she’d realized that humanity had long since ended. There were still people around, of course, but human culture and trends had nearly been erased. The few people that Chell had met had never heard of Aperture Laboratories. They all looked so different, too- their eyes were bright instead of sunken in, and their skin was vibrant with red, yellow, and orange undertones. Chell tried to express how beautiful she thought one woman with coiled hair and gorgeous brown eyes was, but she hadn’t spoken in so long that her voice came out raspy. She ended up getting embarrassed and running away.  
Not that Chell wasn’t a people-person. She was just shy and loved people immensely- so much that they all thought she was in love with them, which she wasn’t. One of her favorite places was the beach. The air was fresh and clean, much opposite to the stale artificial air down in Aperture. The sand was grainy and filled with dusty rocks, smoothed down from the hundred of years they had spent being washed down and eroded away by the ocean waves. Chell liked to make small paintings of them with old tubes of acrylic paint that she’d find in abandoned art stores littered with pens that held ink that had long since dried. She painted them on walls or on tree trunks- she didn’t really have a real “home.”  
On this day, Chell lay on top of an old house. The tiles on the roof were worn and covered with vines and growth- it reminded her of Aperture, but in a good way. Chell didn’t think about Aperture much. The whole experience seemed like a blur now. Back then it was emotionally taxing and awful, but Chell has tossed those feelings away as soon as she’d stepped out of the elevator.  
The companion cube that GLaDOS had thrown at Chell so many months ago still resided near Aperture. Behind the elevator was a small group of houses and parking lots that likely belonged to the scientists that used to work there. Chell had got to keep the portal gun and long-fall-boots when she left. She wondered why GLaDOS would let her keep such precious things, and it was a mystery still left to be solved.  
She looked up at the sky wistfully. Her hair blew in her face and her arms glew red from the sunset in front of her. The horizon was visible, dotted with trees spread out across the plains. Chell breathed evenly and her arms were slack. She felt at peace- if that was what she was truly feeling.  
Chell closed her eyes for a moment. She practiced talking more now that she knew that people she hated weren’t there to hear her. Her voice was soft but warbly, like a piano out of tune being played tenderly. She didn’t know that much English, seeing as she’d been forced into testing so young. She could understand it fine, with few errors on her part, but remembering the words to say and in order? Oh, what a task. To practice, she’d sing little tunes when she thought she was alone. Most of the time they were copied from other people singing songs they remembered from decades ago or radios still playing in store windows, but Chell could make her own songs.  
“Light… of…. Day……”  
She sung quietly to match the mood of where she was. She focused on the tuning waves behind her rather that the words she was saying.  
“What a gift, to see…..  
I used to know not who you were  
But now you are so welcoming  
You took what I…. didn’t want  
And held what I would… need....”  
Chell stopped and opened her eyes. She didn’t know how to end her song- more of a poem, actually- and trailed off into a stop. The sun was almost set.  
“H- hey! Uh…”  
Chell nearly leapt out of her place and almost fell off the roof. A woman, in her late-20’s, peered up at Chell from her left. She looked over at the woman nervously, blush spreading across her cheeks. How embarrassing to be caught singing, especially a song that nobody would know!  
“That was really pretty, you know- unless you don’t! Then I’m- uh-” The woman looked down at the ground, biting her lip. “I’m just telling you, I guess. I- I’m Mel!” She held out her arm at the roof. The orange light reflected off of the side of her palm. Her hand was freckled and covered with little cuts and scars. They were enamoring, Chell thought.


	2. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's p short. You don't need one

Wheatley and Space still floated through the massive expanse that was the stratosphere. They weren’t even that far from Earth, and the moon looked bright as ever. The sun was setting, and Wheatley let out a small sigh. To be honest, he missed Chell. They could’ve been good friends, if he hadn’t mucked it up-  
Stop. He didn’t like to think about that.  
He looked over at his “acquaintance” who muttered cheerfully as he floated in circles, in circles, in circles around him. Wheatley wasn’t sure why Space was moving much more that him, seeing as Wheatley was too small to have a gravitational pull. He would catch himself staring at the robot sometimes, just watching his optic move around in a blur of yellow and grey.   
I don’t know you well, to be honest  
I think we’d be good pals  
I screwed up last time  
Maybe this one’s my second chance  
Wheatley thought that poems should have a clear meaning. Poems that needed you to think to figure out what the verses meant were… nice, but they were confusing to him- and it was embarrassing when everyone else interpreted the writing differently than you. He liked writing with a clear meaning that made it obvious what the “mood” or emotion the piece was supposed to make you feel.  
Wheatley didn’t think it was a flaw to want to feel smart. Everyone he spoke to thought it was stupid to think that, but he had his own beliefs. Wheatley knew for a fact he wasn’t smart- or at least, emotionally or philosophically. Every robot in Aperture could calculate numbers in a matter of seconds, and had access to a whole database of knowledge. But Wheatley wasn’t as sure as other AIs or even people of what others would think of you, or how they were going to react to things you said. He couldn’t pick out what questions to ask if he needed an answer, or how you should act when something good or bad happens to you.  
Wheatley sighed, and looked over at Space. I’m sure he isn’t sad about anything, he thought, He pretty much got all he wanted, and he wasn’t stupid enough to make bad decisions like me.  
“Hey. Hey.”  
Wheatley looked up and his optic shrunk for a hot second before turning back with the new noise.  
“Are you... talking to me?”  
“Space buddy. That’s what we are.” Space laughed and spun around some more.  
“You think we’re buddies?”  
“We’re all alone. Together. No one else to talk to but-” He paused for a second, as if unsure what to say next. He waited, then yelled, “Space! That’s all that there is.”  
Wheatley was a bit confused on how to begin a conversation. He knew next to nothing about space, but he tried anyway.  
“I- I mean, there’s us. We’re here-”  
“Here. In space. Together.”  
“Together forever, like two huma-” Oh, that came out wrong.  
Space let out a robotic laugh and looked at Wheatley, directly, for the first time. Ever. Like he wanted to talk to him instead of space. Weird.  
“We could be besties. Space besties.”  
“...’Besties?’”  
“Yeah! I could write space poetry. Like yours, but about space.”  
Wheatley felt his own artificial mind go sharp and the moment felt like minutes of static. He was listening!? He thought frantically. I didn’t think he was listening, what if he thinks it’s stupid- I mean, it’s not all that bad, but still-  
“I liked your poems. They were short, unlike space!”  
If Wheatley had skin, it would’ve gone red. Or, at least, that’s how he remembered it worked from the digital pamphlet on human emotion he was given when he was put in charge of the test subjects.  
“You… you liked them?”  
“Well, not as much as space.” Space Core said apologetically. He looked behind at Earth for a moment, as if he vaguely missed it. “Better than Earth, though. Ha!”   
Their conversation ending with that, and they went back to their usual dynamic. Space babbled about his fascination with space, and Wheatley simply floated next to him. They both had tendencies to ramble about the things they liked, but in different ways- Space would talk about space whenever he felt like it (which seemed to be all the time,) but Wheatley would have to be prompted in a conversation if he was going to start getting sidetracked. He’d done it all the time whenever he was still friends with Chell, and even a little bit with the other robots in Aperture.  
Wheatley missed Earth. His old “home”, or whatever you’d call Aperture Labs, the blaring blue lights that filled the facility day and night, the muffled hum of machinery and tubes behind the walls- he’d never took the time to appreciate those small things when he was there. Now, space seemed to suck up background noise like a vacuum and the light was either too bright or barely there. The old test subjects used to be nice to him- they didn’t like him, per say, but at least they didn’t think he was stupid. Or, Wheatley thought, they didn’t know he was.   
\--  
Chell took Mel’s hand carefully and pulled her up. She had a square jaw and wore bright red lipstick that complemented her red-brown hair. She had bright brown eyes that looked like they had the sun inside of them, and she was beautiful. She smiled at her and sat down on the top of the roof.  
“So…” Mel began, “Where’re you from?”  
Chell stared at her. She’d never really thought about where she came from. Aperture Labs had been her whole life- she didn’t even know what a “normal” person’s life was like. She opened her mouth to speak, but remembered how awful she thought it sounded, so she closed it. Mel looked at her expectantly for another second, then nodded as if she understood what Chell meant.  
“I see. You don’t really talk, do you?” She gazed at the sliver of sun still visible from beyond the horizon and sighed.  
“Well, uh…” Mel sheepishly put her hand on her opposite upper arm and glanced at the ground. “Do you live anywhere? If you do, could you point to it?”  
Chell stared at her again, her face growing red. She lived a nomadic life, and only traveled where she felt like. The only permanent aspect of her life were her long-fall boots, which she didn’t feel like leaving behind. She wasn’t even sure if she could point to where Aperture Laboratories was.  
Chell rubbed the back of neck and shrugged. Mel tilted her head and sighed.  
“I guess you don’t really have a place to live, huh? But, uh,” Mel fiddled with her fingers. “Do you know sign language?”  
Chell really didn’t know what that was. She only knew how to talk in English, and she was too embarrassed to use her voice.  
“Can I teach you? A bit, anyway,” said Mel. Chell slowly nodded, and then adjusted her seating so that she was facing Mel.  
“Okay, so…” She held up a fist and pointed to it. “This is ‘a’. Well, in sign language at least.” Chell nodded and made a fist as well to show her understanding. Mel continued and held up an open hand with the thumb tucked in the palm.  
“This one’s ‘b’. Get it?”  
They went on for the next couple of hours as they went through the whole alphabet. Chell didn’t quite get it memorized, but she could spell her own and Mel’s name by the end of it. It was dark then, and the warm summer air got pleasantly cooler.  
“Hey, would you…” Mel bit her lip. “You want to stay at my place for the night? I held you up and I doubt any place would take you in this late.”  
Chell’s cheeks grew red and she looked away. Mel was asking her if she wanted to have a place to stay for the night. Usually, she’d have to awkwardly beg for a blanket or two, which was normally met with either a judging glare or a slam of the door.  
“Yeah.” Chell’s hand flew over her mouth as her voice cracked. Her palms sweat and it was hard to make eye contact with Mel. Mel looked at her kindly, and took her hand. She pulled her off of the roof and the started walking towards presumably where she lived.  
“Alright, my car should be around here somewhere and we can get going.”  
The streets of the small town they were littered with old cans and newspapers that had been left behind by the people that used to live there. It had an old convenience store on one side of the road with broken glass windows matted with dirt and moss. On the other stood a row of abandoned houses. They seemed haunted, and if you peered inside one of the windows it’d look as if the inhabitants had simply vanished.  
They reached Mel’s car after two blocks and she held open the door.  
“Well, get in,” said Mel. Chell followed as she’d told her to and hesitantly lowered herself onto the seat. They were soft, but worn, and had patches of mint-colored foam sticking out in places. The console was littered with garbage and rocks, and the radio perpendicular to it had a long crack on the narrow screen where the station would be displayed. It definitely wasn’t the nicest car around, but when the human population is in the thousands working cars can be hard to find.  
Mel stuffed her hand in her jean pocket and drew out a key with a colorful lanyard attached to the end. She put it into the ignition and the engine gave a small shudder. The whole car hummed around Chell and she could barely hear the words Mel was saying. She hadn’t felt like this since she she left Aperture- the walls and seat were constantly vibrating, and the air wasn’t tinged with dirt or seawater. The atmosphere seemed fake again, and that was what truly terrified Chell.  
She didn’t understand why she was so scared. Nothing wrong was happening to her- if anything, she should be relaxed since she wasn’t travelling by foot. But the whole thing made Chell want to vomit, and she gripped the armrests so tightly that she could feel the plastic base underneath. Suddenly, Mel had her arms around her and was asking her what was wrong, over and over again until it seemed like a rhythm.  
Are you okay?  
Girl from the moon, you didn’t know it was cold  
Until you came to Earth and felt the sun’s warmth  
These feelings you’ve got, they feel old  
It’s winter now  
So now it’s cold  
“Hey! Uh- oh god I don’t even know your name- are you okay!? What did I do- I’m so sorry-” Chell let out a sob and leaned into Mel’s chest. She was warm.  
“Oh- the car-”   
Mel reached over and hastily pulled out the key. The hum of the car stopped, and the only noise was Chell’s small hiccups and Mel rubbing her back. Chell knew about the same as Mel about why she had started crying. The car definitely didn’t feel like Aperture Labs at first- it was a warm brown color, and dried flowers and cloves were taped all over the walls. It smelled like the forest, but only the good parts of it. Chell had liked it. She’d thought it felt homely. But now she was crying like it was testing all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably cringe lolll


	3. Flush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> portal? in MY 2018?

“Space. Space. Space is where we are. Space buddies- in space!”  
Space core was back at his usual habit of speech, which was centered around the places beyond Earth. Wheatley was still thinking about his little “conversation”, if you could even call it that, with Space earlier. There wasn’t anything to do in space other than talk or make up your own stuff, but that got dull pretty quick.  
“Hey. Hey, ‘buddy’,” Wheatley said. Space Core didn’t respond.  
“Oi. Space-”  
“Space!?” Space Core immediately turned his optic behind him to look at Wheatley, who had been pushed back by the surprise.  
“Gah!” Wheatley exclaimed. “I wasn’t talking about space- I was talking to you!”  
Space core lowered his optic as if he was disappointed. “Oh. That’s fine too, I guess.”  
“Do you- do you have a name? One that’s not ‘Space Core’?” Wheatley asked tensely.  
“I’m Space. My dad is space. If you think about it, we’re all-”  
“That was still ‘Space Core’. Pick another one. Please.”  
“Uhh…” Space trailed off and narrowed his lids. “Well… I like ‘Space’. It’s my name. I don’t know yours- hopefully it isn’t Space, too.”  
Wheatley sighed. Calling him ‘Space’ was about as good as it would get for then. But, all robots who chose names usually based it off of their own interests- after all, it wasn’t like the humans gave them one when they were made. They’d just throw them onto management rails with a serial code, which was pretty much the robotic equivalent of a phone number. Names were normally very personal, and ranged from adjectives to sentences to the names of actual scientists working at the facility. He supposed that he shouldn’t judge… Space’s choice of a name, even if he didn’t understand it.  
“Hey. Hey space buddy, what’s your name?”  
“Oh. It’s ‘Wheatley’.”  
“Ha! That’s a nice name, even if it doesn’t have anything to do with space.”  
“I guess-”  
“Uh. Uh,” Space looked side to side and moved his handles closer to his optic. “I have a question. A space question.”  
“Um…” Wheatley didn’t know much about space, but Space did. If he didn’t know the answer to his ‘space question’, then he’d make a fool of himself in front of him- not that he was concerned about that, of course.  
“Ask away?” He said with uncertainty.  
“Okay- well, this is more of a space request-”  
Ah. A request. That wasn’t so bad.  
“- can you write me a poem?” He gasped like he was trying to build suspense. “A space poem.”  
Wheatley’s processors hiccuped and he couldn’t see for a moment. He’d never made a poem on command, and it wasn’t like they were eloquent even when they weren’t. He had a vivid memory of one particularly snarky robot telling him that he didn’t have an “academic voice”- and if that didn’t already sound bad enough, he didn’t even know what an academic voice was.  
“I- um-” Wheatley stuttered nervously. “Of course can write you a poem, mate! I uh- ha-” He shook his body and started again. “I’ll write you a-”  
“GREAT!” Yelled Space. “Oh gosh. Include the stars.”  
Wheatley didn’t know where to begin. His poems were mostly about him lamenting over past experiences and his mistakes- he’d never written a poem centered around nature or anything like that. Not like he’d ever seen much of it, anyways. Any other time he would’ve said “no”, but for some reason this time was different. It wasn’t like when he was friends with Chell, when he just wanted to stay friends and have a mutual respect between them, it was more like he wanted to impress him until Space liked Wheatley as much as he did.  
“Well. Here goes, mate:  
Space is big  
People are small  
Stars look like-  
uh--  
Flowers in a field  
And they… go on forever…?”  
That was the most stupid set of words Wheatley had ever heard in his entire life. Horrible. Not a single rhyme in the whole thing, and stars really didn’t look like flowers in a field. At least not to him.  
“That…” Space seemed unsure of what to say. Wheatley couldn’t see. He really, really wished he could do that moment over again. It was like self-loathing, except his searing hatred was directed at his… “creation”.  
“Space buddies. In space. Reciting space poems. Spa-ace!” He spun around, yelling the word over and over again. Space!  
Wheatley gave a sigh of relief. Space seemed happy enough, and at least they’d passed the crappy poem.  
\--  
“Hey! Lady!”  
Chell looked up. It was day now, and they were still inside the car. Rays of sunlight shone on dust on the air, warming Chell’s arms. She looked at Mel in confusion. What had happened? The last thing she could remember was crying- oh.  
She waved her arms at Mel, trying to convey the question she had. Mel stared at her in confusion and concern and held her shoulders.  
“You- um-” She blushed and bit her lip. “You passed out last night, i-i-in my arms. I got you a blanket from the back-”  
Chell looked down. Neatly wrapped around her were two stuffed blankets. They were warm, and they smelled of the same flowers and herbs that were all over Mel’s car. They were the opposite of Aperture Labs.  
“Anyways, I- uh-” Mel touched Chell’s cheek and it went red from the warmth. “You fell asleep. We’re still not at my house but I’m not sure how I can take you there since you- well, I’m not exactly sure what was wrong, but-”  
“Chell.” The word felt dry on Chell’s tongue, as if it was wrong to say- she hadn’t uttered her name in such a long time that it felt foreign to her then.  
“... Is that your name?” asked Mel. Chell didn’t answer. She just leaned over and wrapped her arms around Mel. She let her head fall onto her shoulder and felt the hairs on her neck with her cheek. Slowly, Mel followed suit and burrowed her arms in the blanket Chell was wrapped in. She awkwardly played with the loose ends of the blanket as she felt Chell’s shoulder on her lips. It was a tender moment, one that Chell had never felt- in a long time, at least.  
“Um…” Mel said softly, “Are you okay? Where did you come from?”  
Chell’s back tensed and she closed her hands into fists. Her breathing turned shaky, and Mel understood.  
“Okay. Didn’t come from a good place, huh?”  
Chell nodded slowly.  
“I guess I’ll tell my life story- oh, is that okay?”  
Chell paused, then nodded again- faster, this time.  
“Okay, um…” Mel looked for where to begin. “Life was okay as a kid, I guess. My mom left when I was pretty young, so I wasn’t that sad. At school the other kids thought that I was weird looking and not ‘manly’ enough for them, I guess. That became true though, when I was in high school.” She chuckled. “That… was another challenge for me. The other kids had always known me by my old name, so it took them a little while to get used to. Some kids refused to ‘get used to it’-” She let out a sigh. Chell nudged for her to continue. Her breathing was even again and she snuggled up into the blanket.  
“-but that was okay. As soon as I got out, I went to a community college. While I’m pretty sure most of them knew I wasn’t- well, you know.” Chell didn’t know, but Mel’s voice was nice to hear. “But they all called me Mel. That was probably the highest point in my life. I worked a part time job with steady income, I was in touch with my dad- it was nice. Then I made the biggest mistake of my life.” Mel’s voice got lower and the air seemed to get heavier.  
“I volunteered for a place called Aperture Labs.”  
Chell breathed in sharply and pulled back. Mel’s eyes grew wide as Chell probed her face for scars, then quick as she’d started, snatched her hands back. She held a deep concern for Mel. Her brows were furrowed and her shoulders seemed ten times heavier than normal.  
“Hey! Do you know that place?”  
Chell could barely hear her. Her head was spinning. Was she a test subject too? Was she put to sleep like me? God, did she have to go through what I did? I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so-  
“It’s okay! Aperture itself wasn’t the bad-”  
Chell put her hand over Mel’s mouth. Don’t say that word, she mouthed. Mel looked at her in confusion.  
“Look,” Mel sighed, “I can’t talk to you. Not unless we have some form of communication- and sign language takes a pretty long time.” She opened the console with a sticky click! Noise and pulled out a notepad and a purple pen that was almost out of ink. “Can you write?” She pressed the button on top of the pen, revealing the ink-covered tip. She tenderly handed it to Chell and pressed the notepad into her hand.  
Chell picked up the pen strangely. She hadn’t ever written with a pen before. She pressed the end onto the paper and tried to write her name. Her writing was childish, and she was slightly embarrassed of it. She showed her work to Mel, with only her name on the page.  
“Chell.” Mel brushed her hair behind her ear. “That’s a pretty nice name. What happened in… what happened to you?”  
Chell looked at her as if she’d lived a thousand years- the trauma that she was going to attempt to describe was horrible, but at least it would make Mel understand.


	4. Love Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ok i need to stop getting so invested in lesbians :pensive:

“Hey, can you be quiet? I’m trying to pick up a radio transmission,” Wheatley said as he attempted to access some sort of radio through a satellite that had been lucky enough to drift by the two robots.  
“So much to see. So much to say. In sp-”  
“Please?” Wheatley begged.  
“Fine. I’ll be quieter now.”  
“Thank you.”  
He grappled onto the lost tech by hooking one of his handles into an edge of the metal casing and tried to plug himself into the mainframe. Wheatley couldn’t get into it the “traditional” way (the way he’s always done it in Aperture,) but he managed to get access to the codes by elongating a metal pointer that had been installed onto each core to press elevator buttons and prying open a panel that had lost its screws. Underneath was a small keypad covered with dust.  
Using the same pointer to press the numbers on the pad, Wheatley was able to lock onto a radio station near Aperture Labs. He congratulated himself, and even tried to tell Space of his success- but he didn’t pay any attention. He was just about to send a transmission to Earth when he came across a problem: what would he say? After all, he didn’t even know if anyone or even Chell were still in that area- or even alive. And even if they were, how could they save him and Space? Not like they all had NASA on quick dial.   
He sighed, defeated.  
“Hey, Space?”  
Space Core stopped his excited speech for a moment and turned his optic around to look at Wheatley.  
“Space Buddy!” He said, “Can I-” He paused, then whispered, “-can I talk loud now?”  
Wheatley looked at his companion confused for a moment, then remembered what he’d told Space half an hour before.  
“Sure, mate.”  
“Yeah!”  
Space Core went back to his usual self and Wheatley looked at him in a certain way until his processors reminded him of his original intention.  
“Uh, do you have any idea how do get us back to Earth- I- I mean, not forever-”  
“Go back home?” Space perked up at the mention of Earth. “We can go back home?”  
Wheatley was terribly confused. He’d thought that space was Space’s whole thing- the thing that he liked better than anything.  
“You- you want to come back home?”  
“Haven’t you been listening?” Space’s voice lowered and he seemed less peppy.  
“Of- of course I have!” Wheatley sputtered. “I’ve just- I’ve got a bad memory, is all.”  
Space Core didn’t seem to trust him that much but he didn’t say anything more.  
“Er- the question-”  
“I don’t know. We’re stuck in space. It’s too empty. ‘Don’t like it anymore.”  
“I’m… I’m sorry, mate.”  
Ultimately, their destiny of floating in space forever was Wheatley’s fault. It was the self-proclaimed “Adventure Core”’s destiny too, but he’d drifted far away from them long ago. A lot of things were Wheatley’s fault, to be honest. The hangars full of comatose test subjects and skeletons because the skin had long since rotted away were because he wasn’t careful enough about it and forgot about their mortality. Chell’s resentment for Wheatley was his own fault because he betrayed her as soon as he’d got a little bit of power (more like a lot of power.) The facility being partially destroyed was a bit of his fault too. But most of all, most of Wheatley’s suffering had been caused by his own ignorance.  
Wheatley hung on to the satellite for a while more. He didn’t know what was left for him to ruin.  
\--  
“God, I’m so sorry… er, Chell.”  
They were on top of Mel’s house now. Mel had felt bad that Chell had to walk alongside her car, but Chell didn’t seem to mind. She liked walking. It was mindless, and it didn’t make you solve puzzles with a consequence of death if you didn’t. The roof faced wheat fields, like the ones that Chell had walked into when she’d first left Aperture. It was early morning, and the chill air flew through their hair like fish in seaweed. The faint noise of birds’ calls could be heard nearby and it was quiet. It was serene.  
Chell nodded and shrugged. She could communicate with Mel a little better now that she had something to write on. She was getting better at writing, too. She was content to just stay with Mel for a while. She was kind, and understanding- and didn’t cringe when she touched her. Spending time with her left Chell with a warm, tingly feeling in her chest. Looking at her made the corners of her mouth lift up, even if she didn’t want them too. It was different kind of feeling than she’d ever had before; it wasn’t a feeling of “this is the best I’ve ever felt”, but rather an ongoing rollercoaster up in terms of wellness. But Chell didn’t know what a rollercoaster us nor how one worked.  
Chell looked down at the notepad she held in her left hand. In the other, she held a pen. She put pen to paper, and wrote,  
It is fine.  
Mel sighed frustratedly. “It’s really not,” she said, “Especially considering you’ve been walking for about three miles now.”  
I don’t mind.  
“I do. It’s just common courtesy.”  
Chell tilted her head.  
“Cour…?”  
“Courtesy. It means to be nice to people. Polite, I guess.”  
Chell tilted her head and looked up at the sky. It was clear- not a cloud in sight except for the occasional wisp of white. They were in what seemed to be a rural area many years ago, but was now overgrown by ivy plants and cobwebs from the native spiders. The streets were deserted aside from a few mice scurrying about the place- and Chell and Mel. The air was clean yet tinged with the scents of what used to be the stench of humanity and its products, a memory so faint in Chell’s mind that it felt like a misfiring of neurons in the brain- or, deja vu.  
After another hour, just when Chell began to feel fatigued, they stopped at what was Mel’s place of residence: a small stucco house with rotting trees in the front and a slant roof. The door was nearly rotted away, and the floorboards on the porch showed its age. Weeds grew like it was a forest of its own of on the old lawn. Wildflowers were abundant and even grew into other yards and in cracks in the road. Birds’ nests hung low in the fruit trees, right above small piles of decomposing oranges and apples on top of the litter. Flower-print blankets served as curtains in the cracked windows- though they had virtually no purpose with the lack of humans still alive.  
Mel turned off the ignition and stepped outside the car. She looked different in this light; it was less flattering, yet she still looked the same kind-mannered way to Chell.  
“So,” Mel said with a snort, “This is it. I hope you like it.”  
Chell scribbled, I am sure I will.  
They walked through the yard to the front door. Decomposing leaves crunched under their feet as they did so. Mel dug into her pocket and retrieved a key. She attempted to stick it in the keyhole at least three times before meeting success; then, she unlocked the door.  
The inside of the house was warm. The walls were colored persimmon and they wooden floors were faded brown. The room they were in was the living room, presumably. There was one beaten couch in the center and various side tables of different shapes and sizes shoved against the perimeter of the room. Books and papers were littered across the floor and established a pathway leading to the couch and to a door into the kitchen. Sun shone through gaps in the curtains. The room had felt homey.  
Mel sighed and tossed a backpack onto the floor. “Here it is,” she said, “Home sweet home.”  
Chell took hesitantly took a step inside the house. The floorboards let out a small creak.  
“The house is kind of old. I don’t know who had it before me, but…”  
Chell took attention to Mel- she was taking off her shoes. They were old, ratty things with peeling logos on the sides. She looked down at her own shoes- the long-fall boots- and noticed them for the first time. Chell couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken them off, or seen her own feet. She sat down on the floor and began to attempt removing them with no success. Her feet began to feel numb and hot as the time it took picking at the straps increased.  
“Um.”  
“What- oh, your shoes?” Mel sat beside Chell and inspected the boots. “Here, give me your foot.”  
They fiddled with the straps and heels for what seemed like an hour. Chell grew antsy. She just wanted them off. Her legs took turns being man-handled by Mel in an attempt to get at least one of the boots off.  
“Shit, how do these even- geez,” Mel huffed. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling as if it would give her an answer. “Do you remember who put these on or how they did it?”  
Chell shrugged. In the time they wasted trying to take off the boots, they’d managed to undo the straps, but nothing else. They’d tried everything they could think of: pulling, pushing, squeezing, knocking- and none of it worked. It was stress-inducing and Mel hadn’t even taken off her other show because of this.  
“Okay, so we’re-” Mel rapped her knuckles on the floor and furrowed her brow. “Fuck it, do you care about these things?”  
Chell took a moment of consideration. The boots had saved her life more times than could be counted, but what good would they do up here on the surface? She didn’t have the portal gun either, rendering the boots virtually useless. But the sentimental value Chell had for them; they had been the only constant in her life other than testing for years. She didn’t know if she could just break them like they were garbage. She shook her head no, nonetheless.  
“Great. I’ve got a power drill in the back- wait, your leg…” Mel muttered under her breath for a long period of time. Chell was enamored by her whispering. It was a sweet thing, a human thing she hadn’t ever seen at Aperture. Even the recordings of Cave Johnson and Caroline seemed robotic to her because their interactions didn’t seem to have any compassion in them. When she was down in the labs, their voices had made Chell shudder thinking about the corruptness in their voices. She’d only heard one person who didn’t have a tainted heart: Mel.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this all written out before I separated it into chapters so don't judge reeee


End file.
